LinkedIn has many tools beginning with a personal profile extending to a company profile and beyond that the ability to connect to many linked in groups. For professionals in the marketplace, a LinkedIn profile is a must. Potential employers, your current clients, prospective clients, and even coworkers expect to find you on LinkedIn and understand your professional qualifications from what you've listed in your profile.

LinkedIn Groups

You may belong to up to 50 LinkedIn groups. You may also create those groups and be the group owner yourself. Owning or participating in a LinkedIn group allows you to connect with many people may be thousands of people in your target audience.

Your Personal LinkedIn Profile

But to effectively use groups, you must effectively use your personal or individual profile. The personal profile should always include a photograph. A photograph shouldn't be necessary but it matters. Newer users and students just graduating often have too many social network profiles. You should prepare to have many profiles business profiles and personal profiles. Every personal profile needs a photograph.

Photograph, Social Networks, Job History, Etc.

Clearly, the professional profile deserves a professional photograph. Beyond the photograph, social networking profiles allow you to show a status. On LinkedIn, that's that this might be a tweet, which is a 140 character comment distributed through twitter. Deeper in your profile, is your individual value proposition what you contribute to your team or your company or your customer. Because LinkedIn generates lots of its revenue from human resources and employment, a LinkedIn profile looks a lot like a resume. Therefore, your LinkedIn profile can include a job history similar to how you might list it on your resume. Your LinkedIn profile can show or not show the LinkedIn groups to which you belong. It may also display your twitter handle and even all your tweets were simply those that you choose to display on LinkedIn. On both your individual profile and your company profile you can post blog posts from your blog. Applications on LinkedIn can also display presentations, blog posts, book recommendations, events that you plan to attend, etc.

If You Are A Student Or Recent Graduate, Make Your LinkedIn Profile Now

Each social network, has its own user base which represents a portion of your target audience and prospective customers. I recommend it to every student to create a LinkedIn profile. As you get closer to graduation he should complete your profile, which means to fill it with complete information. Another strong point of LinkedIn, is the ability to capture recommendations. Former clients, customers, managers, employers, and even coworkers can serve as sources of recommendations.

As you get more sophisticated about LinkedIn, not only do you complete your individual profile or your personal profile, but you complete your company profile which now allows you to include the products and services offered by your firm. LinkedIn groups extend your reach another step deeper into this broad marketplace and a large number of professional connections. Recommendations are a source of 3rd party endorsement of you and of your work.

Make certain that each person in your organization has a complete LinkedIn profile that includes an appropriate photograph and contact information including telephone number and e-mail address.

Need Some LinkedIn Advice For Your Company & Staff, Give MediaFirst A Call

If you need help driving your organization to complete its LinkedIn profiles and online presence, give us a call at MediaFirst at 770.642.2080 or find us online at http://mediafirst.net.